Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Timeline of subject acceleration?

The "yikes" was me envisioning my son with a 7 year skip at age 10. I know there are others for whom it would be appropriate (at least from an academic standpoint).

When my son was 10, he was at the 90th percentile as compared to end of year 7th graders, so placement in 8th grade that year would have been fairly appropriate academically. And now that I think about it, his Algebra I class that year was the only class where he was challenged at all.

I have noticed over the years that he does best at the level where his test scores place him around the 90th percentile--which makes sense, as the 90th percentile tends to indicate mastery.

The question about regular, honors, advanced level of class when accelerating...I would never accelerate into a regular class (in middle or high school) here because I have been in the classrooms here and know the ability level of the regular classes and the number of non-readers, low level readers, non-English speaking, and horrible behavior of the students (whether the behavior is a defensive mechanism for the poor academic skills or the poor behavior leads to poor academics or some combination of the two, I don't know). My point is no way would I accelerate to a regular level class here in this district....but your situation might be different. It would just not serve the purpose of the acceleration. And middle school kids can be cruel...no matter what level the class is...but I think the honors classes could be less cruel/more accepting to having an accelerated student in their midst.

Like I said ymmv.

So aquinas - we've done NO subject acceleration to date - but that may soon change. We are not certain how acceleration should have looked or how it should look in the future...color me clueless.

HK, I can see where writing would be an issue for MANY young gifted students. For most, their minds are way ahead of their fine motor skills!

What you did sounds PERFECTLY reasonable - who EXPECTS a child to be THAT advanced?

When DD hit the ceiling in multiple subjects on multiple grade level tests, over multiple years - we finally broke down this year and had her take an above-level test. It was eye-opening for me, as she did better than I could have imagined when compared to the EXPLORE 8th grade group. Her skills vary by subject, with writing closer to grade level than many other skills. Her spring MAP test RIT scores back up the EXPLORE (beyond the 99th percentile and GROWING in the majority of subjects at a MUCH higher rate than expected, despite the original high scores - so much for the myth of "evening out" in 3rd grade) and may even suggest progress since the EXPLORE. Not sure where to go with this, but we are talking to the school.

I can see where there would be a preference to skip into an advanced instead of a regular class. I'm curious whether homework/workload becomes an issue here, too, with younger students. I have actually come to believe that all G&T classes should work by a flexible "readiness to learn" level, not age. G&T programs can include such a wide range of abilities and these children can change so quickly. But I'm just dreaming... !

Aquinas, sending you a PM.

Thanks so much Cookie!

I'm just popping online quickly and wanted to thank everyone for their feedback and timelines. I plan to respond personally to each of you as soon as possible, because your feedback is truly so valuable in helping me envision options for my son's education down the line. He is DH's and my world, and it warms my heart to know there are so many generous, engaged parents on the forum who share a passion for giving their children every possible opportunity and support. So thank you!

I typed half a post on this thread the other day and deleted it because it wasn't coming out right and I didn't have time to make it so. Let me try again. If the tone is off, please read that I didn't mean it so; I am just trying to express that the common way of thinking seems odd to me, because that may be useful input.

I get that in many school situations, subject acceleration is what you have to do because there's no better alternative. But if you're homeschooling (freely, not tied to school courses in any way), it seems odd to me even to ask the question that way.

Part of my hesitation is that, perhaps, this may just be evidence that DS isn't actually gifted. But [expletive deleted] it, I don't actually believe that. So it is relevant to say: in a good school, the best way to meet his needs (granted that they aren't all going to be perfectly met) has been not to use acceleration. If I were homeschooling him, I would simply abandon all notion of what grade he was in for each subject (just as I have for maths, the subject where he is treated differently at school). There is no age of students such that he is just like the average student of that age, even if you take writing out of the equation.

For basic skills:

- Reading: DS started to read by 2 (before he could talk, hence, I don't know exactly when) and for some years, a useful rule of thumb was that doubling his age gave a safe underestimate of what he could read. By the time he went to school at 4 he could read anything that interested him with ease, which included much science material aimed at adults (though I don't mean Nature; that used to be a bit hard, though he did happily try). Reading isn't a school subject after age 8 at school - it is assumed that all children can read by then, and the focus moves on to studying literature - so I don't really know what people mean by "grade 6 reading" etc. At 10 he often reads "light" adult literature (Asimov, Douglas Adams, Agatha Christie being recent favourites), but as he's generally quite happy reading what other children his age read, we haven't given him Proust.

- Maths:
-- he started school at 4 doing only simple addition and subtraction, took off that year...
-- completed ALEKS grade 3 and 4 maths aged 5,
-- and grades 5 and 6 aged 6 (all this very fast, it wasn't that that was what he did that year, just that it's a convenient label for something he spend a few weeks on that you may recognise)
-- aged 7 he completed the GCSE course aimed at 16yos here, and learned to problem-solve independently, and did ALEKS Algebra 1 (again, in a week or two, knowing almost all of it already)
-- aged 8 he did ALEKS high school geometry and Algebra 2, and a lot more problem solving;
-- aged 9 he did ALEKS Precalculus, yet more problem solving, and most of AOPS Geometry (which overlapped his tenth birthday)
-- aged 10 his maths teacher says "he could obviously do university maths" and I guess that's so, though he hasn't covered the whole school syllabus yet and we're in no hurry; he has competition honours that very few 18yo students planning to make maths their career reach.

(By the way, aeh, if there's really no maths in elementary school other than the four operations, you need better elementary schools!)

So actually, in both, "twice his age as a safe underestimate" works not badly for both of those basic skill sets.

But in other subjects, the challenges aren't basic-skill related, nor are they limited by what the subject matter is. He's at liberty to make more sophisticated interpretations of sources, use a more interesting vocabulary, come up with weirder hypothetical questions, than his age peers if he wishes. Perhaps if he were an unusually fluent writer for his age or unusually social-chameleon, I might feel there was benefit in putting him up a lot of years to get peers who were more likely to be doing the same (I think HK has found this, in particular), but as he isn't, the few years that would be practical doesn't feel like a benefit worth having. And "what grade level is he working at in history" say, feels like a non-question.

Yes!

ColinsMum,

Unless you have seen it with your own eyes it is impossible to believe just how drastically the brain tumour of Political Correctness has impacted education in the USA.

Back in the UK in the early 70s the 3 Rs were assumed to have been grasped by 8 with reading (along with using a dictionary), arithmetic and cursive handwriting mastered. Alas! Here on Planet USA a school producing similar results that was not a Homeschool would be a rare bird indeed.

I can tell you what I meant. It was the general level (or levels, as mostly listed ranges) of the books my son read for pleasure combined with what I assigned. It seems important to list a general reading level in order to have an understanding of that aspect of the child's academic functioning.

Why?

(To be slightly more helpful: once decoding is no longer an issue, which I suppose is what DS's school is placing at 8 for a mixed-ability class, I would expect that the fiction a child enjoys reading is determined by sense of humour, presence of characters with whom the child enjoys empathising, degree of suspense enjoyed, etc.; the science factual material is determined by scientific background knowledge; the political opinion by exposure to political thought, etc. Lumping this together into a "reading level" seems unlikely to be practical or helpful.)